Guide To Better Living · Health · Lifestyle

Putting The “Light” In “Twilight Years” – What We All Really Need In Old Age

Aging, The Beauty of Old Age, As You Get Older, Mental health
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Old age, it’s one of those things that we consider to be so far ahead in time that we don’t need to worry about it. But old age creeps up on us sooner or later, whether it’s planning for retirement by starting up a pension in your 20s or 30s, or we have a moment in life that makes us realize how fallible we are. Preparing for old age is something we can all do, regardless of how are young we are, and what are the best ways to do this?

Financial Security

Not just the aforementioned pension, but if you live in places where you need to pay for your medical treatment, it is essential for you to start a pension pot as well as a medical fund pot as soon as possible. While there are many organizations that can help with regards to medical payment, such as GoMedigap, – that helps pensioners with Medicare costs – you can find out more from GoMedigap.com, but it’s your prerogative to start preparing for your twilight years in the financial sense. It’s heartbreaking to see so many people in their old age struggling to pay bills, or living without the essentials in life, and this appears to be the way of the world currently. So it’s in your best interests to start preparing for a more enjoyable later period in life.

Looking After Our Mind

It looks like there are more cases of Alzheimer’s and age-related cognitive decline than ever before. And you might have seen relatives succumb to Dementia, and how upsetting it is for the caregivers.

Looking after our brain isn’t a difficult task. The trick is, much like physical exercise, we need to be doing enough to stimulate our brain muscle so it can grow. Essentially, this is all about doing stuff that you find challenging. And while it may sound like you’re going back to school, do things that are stimulating, but stuff you enjoy.

This could be playing more computer games, as they have been shown to have a positive impact on brain development, or it could be something as simple as having a strong coffee while playing Sudoku. Caffeine has been shown to have a positive impact on the brain, and Sudoku is one of those complicated puzzles that you can do anywhere. If you’ve always wanted to learn a language or an instrument, these are options too. But we all seem to think that our brains get worse as we get older, this is not the case!

Learning About What Makes Us Happy

In old age, we can all start to feel somewhat isolated, especially as people our own age starting to pass away, and you might not feel that people aren’t listening to you anymore. It’s important for us to know what makes us happy. It’s not just beneficial to us in old age, but it’s beneficial to us in life. We can spend our whole lives not knowing what really makes us happy because we focus more on other people. Your happiness is paramount to ageing, but it’s also important to how you live your life.

And of course, making sure that you appreciate life, by getting out regularly into nature, is something simple that we can all benefit from. There’s an article on TheGuardian.com explaining more on why we need to get out into nature. Not only is it beneficial for our minds and bodies, it helps us gain a perspective on what really matters in life. This, ultimately, is what will help us keep a sense of perspective as we get older.

This is a collaborative post.
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Health · Lifestyle · Wellness

4 Things That Are Messing Up Your Immune System

Energy is one of those things that we are constantly chasing after in life. We need energy to concentrate at work. We need energy to keep up with the kids. We need energy to keep our relationships and love life healthy. Energy is what keeps us moving and if you’re feeling constantly tired and sluggish, then it’s important to know how you can replenish your energy and get those levels soaring back to their best. Before you can understand how you can boost your energy and repair any cracks in your immune system, you need to understand that our energy levels are not something that is passive. The choices that you make from food choices to hours you choose to sleep have a direct effect on your energy levels. Those social media buffs that are constantly perky and peachy? They’re likely living a life that ensures that they have bags of energy to work with. And you? When you’re feeling tired, sluggish and can barely function, that depletion is a direct result of your own choices.

Tired, Stressed, Fatigue

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Of course, there are times in life that the reason for our depleted energy levels isn’t a choice. Chronic illness, stress and depression all contribute to low energy levels, and it can be very hard to boost your energy levels when your immune system is being attacked. Medications can drain your energy and when your body is fighting as hard as possible against an illness or infection, it’s companies like https://www.herabiolabs.com that are going to be the rescuers rather than a concoction of ginger and cayenne pepper. Science is currently developing in leaps and bounds when it comes to medication and understanding the diseases that hit us, compromising our immune systems and making us feel weak. In the meantime, though, we need to do everything possible to work on our bodies and our health, so that even when illness does inevitable hit we can be ready to fight it. We have the choice to create the energy that we live with; whether that is low or high. If you can feel yourself flagging, ask yourself whether you are ready to fight for your body to work in the right way. It doesn’t take much; a few changes a day could change your life in a good way. Below, you can find some ways you are draining your own energy levels and how you can get your energy levels at their best again.

Stress. Earlier on, I mentioned stress as a reason that we can feel low in energy. When our mental activity is at a height – ie, when stressed and overthinking things – it can be very difficult to pull it back. It can take an awful lot of energy for your brain to comprehend what’s going on. Long periods where we feel stressed can leave us very fatigued and bogged down, and this is all created with brain power. It’s called burn out, and those who have suffered it before will know exactly how draining it is to deal with. The first thing to do when you’re feeling sick, tired and run down, is to work out whether your thoughts are running away with you – literally.

Communication. For the most part, communication is a good thing. Talking to people that we love about how we feel can never really be a bad thing, can it? However, in this world of hyped technology and constant need to talk to people and check social media, you are draining your batteries faster than an iPhone. Sometimes, taking a step back and quite literally switching off our modes of communication can make a massive difference to the way that we feel. Blue light technology has an awful lot to answer for, and it’s important for you to put down the phone and the tablet and look at the world around you for a moment. Recharge your batteries to be able to work at the maximum efficiency available.

Light bulb, current

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Saying ‘Yes’. Are you a ‘yes man’? A yes man is someone who will say yes to everything. Overtime? Yes. Extra work? Yes. Extra time at the gym to get fit? Yes. Sometimes, saying yes is not a good thing. Being a people pleaser can drain your energy as fast as that ‘yes’ escaping your lips. It’s lovely to want to help everyone, but it’s also exhausting, and it can do you no favours to say yes to everyone around you. You need to remember that you have needs and you need to come first, sometimes. The last thing you need to know here is that it’s absolutely fine to say NO once in a while. If people get offended by that, you need to breeze on by and ignore it; you are important, and you should be remembering that you come first.

Sleep. Those who lack energy often find themselves unable to sleep, as well. Sleep replenishes those stores, much like a SIMS character; when the bar is empty, you cannot function. A lot of people nowadays struggle to get more than a few hours of sleep every night, but it’s so important for your basic functions. Sleep helps your brain to work through the day to day stresses and issues that you are battling against. Without it, you cannot work your issues through and they weight in your mind the next day. It’s a nasty cycle of stressful thoughts and lack of sleep and low energy. The way out of it? Any of these natural sleep remedies can help you to switch off and refresh.

There are literally hundreds of things that you can do to boost your immune system, but ultimately it’s going to come down to the choices that you want to make to make yourself feel good again. You matter and if you want to move forward in life feeling whole and healthy, your energy levels have got to matter to you, too. Take the time to fix them, before all you’re doing is not fixing them.